Tire pressuring monitoring (TPM) devices are used in today's vehicles. A tire pressure sensor senses the tire pressure reading (or other conditions, such as the temperature of the tire). These sensed readings may be communicated to a TPM receiver that is disposed in the vehicle. A display screen may also be coupled to the receiver. When the tire pressure reading falls below a particular threshold, the driver of the vehicle may be alerted, for example, by an alert message being displayed to the driver on the screen. The driver can then take any required action.
The transmissions made from the TPM sensor (transmitter) to the TPM receiver (e.g., in the vehicle) are made according to various types of formats. For instance, different automobile manufacturers use different formats. The formats relate to the positioning of data, the number of bits, the meaning of the bits, the transmission rate, the baud rate, and error-handling approaches, to mention a few examples.
In some approaches, each TPM sensor needs to be manually and individually programmed with the desired transmission format or protocol. Current approaches for programming the individual TPM sensors typically involve the use of a hand-held programming device. An operator manually programs the TPM sensor with the selected protocol or format according to the desired automobile manufacturer. Unfortunately, the manual programming approach is error prone, time-consuming, and inefficient.
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